Google has always been about disruption. In a very short span of time, it has changed the way we think about online search and turned the advertising world on its head, in the process becoming the colossus of the online world. Now, as the fabled “Google Phone,” which will bear the name “Nexus One,” moves closer to reality, Google appears set to upend the mobile communications industry as well.

Rumors have been swirling about the Google Phone for the past several months, and Google has been characteristically silent on the subject. But over the weekend, as Mashable reported, in response to tweets coming from inside the company, Google took the rare step of acknowledging the phone’s existence. Yet, the acknowledgment was vague, referring to the phone as a “mobile lab”—the kind of non-response response we’ve come to expect from Google about new products the company has under development.

More details quickly leaked out (including some pictures of the phone “in the wild”). Peter Kafka at All Things Digital confirmed that Google plans to sell the phone directly, meaning unlocked and without the usual subsidies that US mobile consumers have grown accustomed to. Call Google’s approach “European style,” although with a twist. Google plans to enlist carriers as distribution partners. Verizon got first dibs (as it did with the iPhone), and passed (also like it did with the iPhone), but T-Mobile jumped at the chance, Kafka reported.

No word so far on pricing, but I strongly suspect that Google will figure out some innovative way to make the phone more affordable than the typical unlocked handset. A more relevant question is how Google, a company not know for either direct sales or service, particularly where hardware is concerned, will handle those vital components of the handset business.

Google’s decision to build a phone and market the device in the way reports indicate is entirely lacking in precedent. And while Kafka’s blog post indicated that Google hopes to maintain a collaborative relationship with the wireless carriers, it’s hard to not to see the Nexus One as a shot across their bows and a potential threat to the already fragile loyalty of their subscribers.

As if buying AdMob were not enough to ignite the mobile industry, the impending launch of the Nexus One threatens to set it ablaze.

Interviewing a fellow analyst is always rewarding. This morning, I had the pleasure of speaking with John Jacobs, director of notebook market research at DisplaySearch, which is part of the NPD Group. We talked about the outlook for an emerging category that has many names in the industry – e.g. mobile Internet devices or ultra-mobile devices – and comprises everything from netbooks to tablets to e-book devices to gaming platforms.

These devices come in a range of sizes and form factors, but they share a number of important characteristics, including growing feature sets, processing power and reliance on wireless networks to deliver content. I’ll be looking at the confluence of devices and networks in my next report.

The key issue we discussed is oldie but goodie that’s resurfaced again in the past year: how many devices are consumers willing to carry with them? As smartphones evolve into veritable Swiss Army knives, do they obviate the need for netbooks? With a fully functional Kindle app available for the iPhone, do iPhone owners need to purchase a separate e-book device?

These questions ebb and flow with the evolution of the device cycle. Mr. Jacobs’ research suggests that consumers want fewer, more capable devices rather than multiple single-function gadgets, but the challenge with multifunction devices is always one of performing every function well (or at least well enough).

Interestingly, the reaction of consumers varies considerably by market. In developed markets like those in North America, Western Europe, Japan and South Korea, DisplaySearch has found that consumers buy netbooks as a secondary device (to an existing laptop or desktop PC) for specific usage situations (for example, Mr. Jacobs noted that in Western Europe, buyers use netbooks as substitutes for portable DVD players). In emerging markets, by contrast, netbooks sell at a far more accessible price point than more capable laptops, so buyers are willing to sacrifice features and performance just for the ability to purchase a portable computer.

Look for the complete interview transcript in the coming weeks.

Some interesting nuggets from today’s newsletter article comparing smartphones.

If you look more carefully at the CFI Group study, the satisfaction data doesn’t seem all that disparate, with some exceptions. For example, the BlackBerry and Treo tend to index lower for some of the multimedia functions, which makes sense given that these two devices have historically been oriented toward business use. This person nails it:

Generally speaking, the answer is “not much”. Deltas of +/- 5% aren’t really that statistically significant, especially as you get down to smaller and smaller sample sizes.

Some of the usage data seems more significant for the conventional wisdom it appears to debunk, such as the generally accepted fact that iPhone users do more with their devices. This data seems to be saying that owners of Android devices and Palm Pres use several of the content/media categories (e.g. checking voice mail, checking/sending email, using maps) to an equal or greater extent.

It’s no secret that smartphone users index higher for just about every key mobile activity than those with feature phones. But the growth in social networking usage among smartphone users has been truly eye-popping. According to a recent study from Nielsen, the number of smartphone users engaging in social networking activities shot up 187% from July 2008 to July 2009, nearly tripling from 6.4 to 18.3 million users in total.

What’s even more interesting is that mobile users have begun to display similar
frequency and time spent patterns as those accessing the leading social networks
from their PCs. As I discussed in my “Mobile Users and Usage: It’s Personal” report, marketers, publishers and advertisers alike can get a sense of what tomorrow’s mobile media consumption landscape will look like from today’s smartphone users, and mobile social networkers in particular are on the leading edge.